Elbow through Picasso nixes record art deal

Casino magnate Steve Wynn will keep and restore a Pablo Picasso painting that was accidentally damagedafter Wynnputhis elbow through it.

He had agreed to sell the painting, called Le Rve (The Dream), to art collector Steven Cohen for $139 million US just before the accident.

The sale would have set a new record for any sale of apainting. It is $4 million US more than cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder paid for Gustav Klimt's portrait Golden Adele.

Wynn paid $48.4 million USin 1997 for the Picasso,which shows Marie-Theresa Walter, Picasso's 21-year-old mistress.

Wynn had accident while gesturing

Wynn, who his publicist says gestures while he talks,suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that affects peripheral vision.

He struck the painting with his right elbow earlier this month while entertaining guests at his Wynn Las Vegas casino, including Barbara Walters and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Nicholas Pileggi.

He created a hole the size of a silver dollar in the left forearm of Marie-Theresa Walter.

"Oh shit, look what I've done," Wynn said, according to Ephron, who gave her account in a blog.

Wynn is now looking at getting the painting repaired.